Anxiety is a thing most of us have and all wish we didn’t. I’m here to provide a guide to help manage your stress and survive your anxiety. It’s not easy, even if it sounds like it, and it may take many years for someone to learn how to overcome this. At some point in our lives, we must accept the fact that our anxiety may not change, but the way we manage it can.
Here are some tips I learned for different kinds of anxiety that I’ve faced:
Tip #1
If you struggle with social anxiety this little fact might make you feel a bit calmer in situations that you feel awkward or nervous to be in. A big part of my anxiety stems from seeing people that I know from either school, work or extracurriculars that I didn’t plan on or didn’t feel comfortable seeing in public. Especially being caught off guard, this can be scary for most people. I used to always feel awkward if I was seen at the movie theatres or the mall or anywhere that I alone. But the reality is, that person probably feels just as awkward having you see them there. In my opinion, the best thing to do in this situation is not to ignore someone, even though you might feel like it, but to just smile or wave and greet them with a smile. This takes the awkwardness out of the situation and usually avoids an awkward conversation.
Tip #2
When a worry comes to mind, start by asking yourself if you can actually control or resolve the problem. Typically, people feel anxious over hypothetical problems. I’ve learned that a big part of anxiety is worrying about the “what if”. However, you might experience some peace of mind if you adjust your perspective to recognize that the majority of life is beyond your control. This might sound scary but take a situation where you think you did badly on a test. Oftentimes I’ll ask myself, did I try my hardest? Did I still wake up this morning and complete the test? And am I able to go back in time and rewrite this test? Because usually, that last part isn’t possible. I let my worries go knowing that the test has already been taken and it’s out of my control now. If there’s physically nothing you can do to solve a problem, try not to be too hard on yourself.
Tip #3
Put your anxiety in writing. During the day, if an anxious thought or worry occurs to you, jot it down briefly and move on with your day. There’s no need to worry about it now; you can always think about it later. Remind yourself of this. Plus, i’v found that jotting down your ideas—whether on a pad, your phone or your computer—takes a lot more effort than just thinking them through, so the impact of your worries is likely to shrink.
Tip #4
It helps to have a safety net or somewhere you can escape to if you’re feeling overstimulated. Often for me, it’s a bathroom or a closed-off room that provides me a place to take a second to sit and breathe. Sometimes this can be the difference between having a panic attack or not. I find that if you catch it early on and take those couple minutes to isolate yourself and clear your head, you might be able to remain calm.
Tip #5
In terms of something you can do to help calm yourself down without having to go somewhere, I find rings to be a great help in distracting me or taking my attention away from my anxiety. On a day I know I’m going to be super anxious, I stack up on the rings so that I have something to fidget with if needed. Companies even make rings specialized for people with anxiety and often times they have a spinner or something that you can play with. A necklace also works if you find rings uncomfortable!
I hope these tips were able to help some of you!